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Walnut Creams
Take one pound of shelled walnuts, the white of one egg, one pound of icing sugar, and a table-spoonful of water. Add the water to the white of egg. Stir in sufficient sugar to make a very stiff paste, and flavour with a few drops of vanilla. Mould into round balls the size of a small marble. Divide the kernels of the nuts into two, and, when you have formed the balls, press half a nut on each side. Leave them several hours in a cool place to harden.
An uncooked fondant, closer to marzipan in method than to anything you cook. The whole recipe turns on getting the paste stiff enough to hold a walnut on each face without spreading.
- Add the sugar by feel, not by weightOne pound of icing sugar to a single egg white and a tablespoon of water is a guide, not a measurement — whites vary from about 30 to 40 g. Sift the sugar and work it in a few spoonfuls at a time until the paste is firm enough to roll without tacking to your palms; you may need less than the full pound, or a little more.
- Icing sugarThis is confectioners' or powdered sugar. Modern brands contain a few per cent cornstarch, which is harmless here.
- Raw egg whiteNothing in this recipe is cooked. If you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurised egg white from a carton, which behaves identically in a fondant this stiff.
- "Divide the kernels of the nuts into two"Buy walnut halves and split them along the natural seam, or simply use two matched halves per sweet. Each sweet takes one whole kernel's worth, so the full pound is likely to be somewhat more than you need; keep the surplus.
- Size and yield'The size of a small marble' means something in the region of half to three-quarters of an inch. A pound of sugar plus one white will give you several dozen sweets, depending on how heavy-handed you are.
- Press firmly, onceSet the halves on opposite faces and press until the paste bulges slightly between them. Repositioning after the surface has begun to dry cracks the fondant and the nuts fall away later.
- "A cool place" is not the refrigeratorSeveral hours at cool room temperature dries the surface to a firm crust. A fridge is damp enough to keep the sugar sticky and can bead moisture on the walnuts. Leave them uncovered on parchment, then store airtight between layers of paper for a week or two.
- VanillaA few drops is right — the paste is nearly pure sugar and takes flavour strongly. Vanilla extract is fine; a bean or paste will speck the white fondant, which may or may not suit you.
Sweets of this kind belong to the late Victorian and Edwardian vogue for home confectionery, when cheap refined sugar and commercially milled icing sugar put work that had once been a confectioner's specialism within reach of an ordinary household. Uncooked fondant — sugar bound with egg white rather than boiled to a temperature — needs no thermometer and no sugar boiler, which is precisely why it counted among the easier things a household cook could attempt; the same paste, tinted and flavoured differently, turns up as peppermint creams, coffee creams and the centres of chocolates. The walnut version relies on English walnuts, and the trick of clamping the ball between two halves so the nut both flavours and decorates is old enough that no single author can be credited with it.